I'm a teacher from Brazil and I've been considering taking the Distance Delta and I'd like to hear from you. Is it worth it? How was the application process?

I've been an English teacher for 5 years, but in terms of formal experience I have 4. In terms of teaching qualifications, I hold TKT papers 2 and 3 I have a BA in languages, a major in Portuguese and English. Do you think I would be a good candidate for Delta?

TKT is usually seen as preparation for the CELTA or ICELT, so the DELTA might be a bit of a bit of a jump for you unless you have a lot of professional development such as workshops and observations and read a lot. Have you ever had any assessed observations?

The Distance DELTA is very expensive at £3,000 by the time you've added up all the costs. As Alex says, it's also a great leap beyond the TKT. The TKT is a very low level test of teaching knowledge and is not a qualification at all - it's exactly what it says it is: an evaluation of your knowledge of teaching English, possibly useful for people want to know if they could be ready in another two years or so to do a CELTA.

As CELTA is a starter qualification, I don't think many people need two years to prepare for it. The exception would be people who don't have the right level of English. Also, as most people who take the TKT are primary and secondary teachers in their own country, neither the CELTA nor the DELTA are particularly relevant to them. The ICELT is usually more like it.

Ironically, when we did the TKT pre-release field trials among the non-native EFL mainstream teachers who already had a BA in English/Education, we found that they were more like five years off a CELTA!

I guess you mean in terms of language development (being Cambridge Proficiency level in English), as you don't need any knowledge of teaching, grammar terminology etc to enter the CELTA. But studying full time you could get almost anyone up to CPE level in two years if they were motivated enough

systematic wrote:The Distance DELTA is very expensive at £3,000 by the time you've added up all the costs. As Alex says, it's also a great leap beyond the TKT. The TKT is a very low level test of teaching knowledge and is not a qualification at all - it's exactly what it says it is: an evaluation of your knowledge of teaching English, possibly useful for people want to know if they could be ready in another two years or so to do a CELTA.

As for me, I just prepared myself using the TKT books. It's no where near as rigorous as the CELTA, obviously, but it wouldn't be fair to TKT to say that is has no teaching practice element at all, nor any tips on how to teach. I've done both CELTA and all of the TKT modules so I'm speaking from experience ;)

I only considered taking the CELTA for a few minutes and then I read this and other similar posts in other sites. Pardon the acronym but, LOL. Maybe someone here can answer the question previously posted about other options. Seems to me that berating one option begets praising another, and well, the latter is missing. So would the CELTA detractors, and even those who defend it, please indulge my request and give those of us still making up our minds about what certification to take a few TEFL certificate names? Preferably by order of personal preference.

I should also mention that I am not a native speaker in the strict sense. That is to say I was not born into an English speaking country nor did I learn the language from infancy but I did grow up after, turning ten, in the US for 17 years. I consider my English to be higher than that of the general population and I did not get that much of a superior education by most people's standards. I attended school from 5th to 12th and then proceeded to go two and a half more years to a community college and got an AAS in EET. Please don't look down upon me because I used AAS and community in the same sentence. I will ignore the put-downs. My experience with TEFLs is, mixed. I took a quick $600 dollar course in the US from the Canadian Institute of English which got me a TESOL certificate. That certificate got me a job at a public school in Mexico. The equivalent of a community college but with an offering of 4 year degrees mostly in engineering fields as it is a technical institute. Not at the level of prestige of something like the ITESM (Instituto Tecnologico y de Estudios Superiores de Monterrey) or the IPN (Instituto Politecnico Nacional) by any means but a widely know college in the state I currently live in.

So my experience with TESOL was good because it got me a job literally within a weekend of walking in and asking about work possibilities. That was the only qualification I had for teaching English other than my speaking level. However before various reforms including an education reform that starts this year took effect we were asked to take two certifications. One to certify our English level and another our teaching level. The CENNI and Cambridge TKT respectively. Both are provided to the SEP (Secretaria de Educación Publica) through British Centre in Mexico, exclusively as far as I can tell (did someone say "corruption"?). And as the tone of our coordinator was nice and would guarantee my continued employment I decided to go for both though only CENNI was required of us last year and the TKT will be later this year. Although the coordinator clearly has shown me favor seeing as I am the only one here that speaks, pronounces, and writes in English at a native level I didn't want to rock the boat and went along. Specially considering it wouldn't hurt to have the certificates and the cost isn't high. The CENNI is Mexico's own 'versión' of the IELTS. I requested a C2 level test which would place me at the equivalent CPE or CAE level of the IELTS (C2 or C1 of the European Framework of Reference). It's been two months since I took that and one since I took the TKT provided by British Centre and the results aren't here yet. The individual who tested me in the speaking portion of the exam seemed to me to be highly unqualified. I could best any of the people they threw at us in comprehension not only of the language but of the culture, mostly that of British and US culture and language. That made me very uncomfortable. Why couldn't they get a Canadian, Brit or American native speaker down here to test us like Trinity does? I would've actually enjoyed that very much.

In any case, my next course of action is to take a certification for my teaching level that could open the door to a public university or institute like IPN or ITESM which I mentioned earlier. But the only option I can see in Mexico is the ICELT or the CELTA. I am leaning towards the ICELT more now but I still have lots of time to decide. So, please. Anyone know a good option that can be completed in Mexico? I don't have the time or resources to travel back to the US and stay for the duration of the course.

I appreciate feedback on all of the above and if anyone out there wants to network, I am very much interested. Thanks for reading.